Home on the Range 2011 01 take 2

Tonight I sit at Barnes and Noble in Oklahoma City near Quail Springs Mall waiting on my youngest son Preston (that will be another story) to finish basketball practice.  But this gives me time to write a few more notes about the Osage and living on the creek near Grainola.

One of my earliest memories is all the mothers getting together for Home Demonstration Club. Now for the younger set that is a club for women where they talk about things you have no clue about (few exceptions for those who are getting defensive) like sewing, canning, and baking. Now I suppose I have to explain that.

Sewing is where a person cuts out material and makes a dress.  Whoops, when was the last time I
saw a young person in a dress, surely I don’t have to define that as I know there are formal parties where a dress is required.  Anyway they make clothes, like shirts and pants. 

Now canning might be more difficult to understand.  First it does not have anything to do with a can or a cancan.  Do you have any idea what a cancan is?  Well look it up on wikopedia.  Canning is a process where folks took things from a garden (will explain what that is next) and put it in a jar, heat it up and then put a lid on it which seals so that the bacteria are dead and the goods inside are preserved for later use during the winter.  The canned goods are stored  in a celler (dadgumit – now I have to define what a celler is).  Anyway the types of things most likely canned are green beans, corn, okra, cabbage, and whatever is grown in the elusive garden.  There are a few exceptions like when we dug potatoes we did not can them but let them dry and stored them in the celler.

For goodness sake lets define celler.  A celler is not a seller which sells things at a store etc.  A celler is a hole in the ground then bricked up the sides and over the top then covered in cement on
top. Now there is a door and steps to get into the cellar.   So now you are probably asking WHY?  Well I will tell you.  A cellar is in the ground because it stays cool during the summer and warm (above freezing) during the winter.  The potatoes are laid on the floor but not too deep as that will cause rot and not covering the entire floor as this is also where we stored the canned goods on shelves placed in the celler.  Now if that did not cause you enough frustration let me tell you the primary but confusing thing about a cellar.  It is what farmers call a storm shelter or tornado shelter.  Now that makes since because Gary England has told all you youngsters to get in a safe place during the tornado warnings.  Here is where it gets confusing.  We DID NOT get tornado warnings as we/dad looked up at the sky and spotted the commotion.  Anyway here is the strange part.  If you went to any farm house there was a cellar in the yard but during a storm everyone pulled out their fancy folding lawn chairs and watched!  I never knew of anyone getting killed but we saw plenty of tornados over the years.

Before we leave the topic here is one last tornado story.  It was after school and Bob Scott
was driving the buss delivering the kids to their homes when we lost a tire on the bus.  By the way Bob was Lizzie’s husband, the cook at Grainola Grade School, he did everything Lizzie did not do
at the school including driving the bus.  We were out in the pasture about a half mile from the Custer’s house, where Leb lived.  Now I have to add there were other Custers but Leb was a little older than me and Leon was a lot older than leb.  Anyway while most of us stayed with the bus others took off to the Custers to get help.  Soon after the tire came off we were looking toward the north toward Aunt Hellen’s house (explained later) and there was the longest tornado I have ever seen.  It looked like it was about 2 to 4 miles north of us.  That evening when I got home I was telling
Dad (Cliff Olson) about it and he told me they were outside (farmers) looking at the sky and they saw a tornado about 2 to 4 miles south of them.  He was at Aunt Helen’s and that was about 1.5 miles north of where we were.  For the younger folks get out your HP calculators or Ipad and figure it out.  For those older folks you can see immediately there is a problem.

Well thanks for the time.

So long, farewell,  alfrederzane (I never was good at German even though I did take the
class).  Someone remind me the German teacher's name,  he was great.

Gary Olson

Glolson21@gmail.com

http://thepioneerman.blogspot.com/

 

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